Post Zedder

After the Z-er gave some valuable input regarding the ideal pizza, I made some changes to my baking methods, with substantial improvements in the output, as pictured here. I was having trouble getting the bottom and top of the pizza properly browned at the same time, so I switched to using a cast-iron skillet in place of the clay tiles. The skillet and oven were pre-heated to 550 or so, then I switched the heat to the broiler a minute before sliding the pie in. The better conductance of the cast-iron relative to the clay tile (and I assume it's better than a standard pizza stone as well) allows the bottom to brown nicely despite the low temperature (relative to a real pizza oven) and the broiler provides the necessary heat to brown the top. There were some issues with unwanted browning of the cheese, but I think that can be fixed. The cross-section reveals that the browning and interior cooking were coordinated nicely in this arrangement.